Instruction, like life, cannot always be planned, especially when teaching students the skills for interacting with real life situations and problems. (Author)

Explores the similarities and differences among three thinking skills programs that help students analyze and evaluate their own problem-solving skills. (MLF)

A new series of instructional television programs designed for fifth and sixth grades, will reinforce basic skills while helping students learn to solve real-world problems. (Author/MLF)

Designing projects around Gardner's multiple intelligences, a Connecticut school created a one-week summer camp where children can tap into their unique strengths. The Summer Stars program allows children ages 7-12 to choose materials and activities from many topics and to participate in one of three internships involving a discovery museum, a…

A four-year study of urban high school renewal found that the leadership and management of change meant dealing with uncertainty, complexity, turbulence, and the cussedness of many different people. This article discusses four study topics (context, vision building, resources, and problem coping), explores will and skill issues, and provides…

Fifth graders at a Virginia school are applying new knowledge about world cultures by constructing artifacts for an Egyptian legacy exhibit. Exhibitions are a key facet of Museums-in-Progress (MIP), a program that links problem-solving activities with the real world. Students learn to develop, install, and interpret an exhibition by touring local…

While businesses have been building electronic highways, education is traveling an electronic dirt road. There are 10 reasons for using technology in classrooms. Students learn and develop at different rates. Graduates must be globally aware, proficient at accessing, evaluating, and communicating information, and adept at solving complex problems.…

After joining a statewide project to encourage continuous improvement in education, the City of Burlington (New Jersey) Public Schools tackled high school attendance problems, using a seven-step process based on defining reasons for improvement, assessing the current situation, performing a cause-and-effect analysis, formulating countermeasures…

Differing in purpose, emphasis, and results, three types of action research (individual teacher research, collaborative action research, and schoolwide action research) allow educators to investigate areas of concern and meet classroom and school challenges. Faculty should consider five elements: purpose and process; support provided by outside…

Teachers at a central California high school operate the school according to a strict, progressive set of principles. The Anzar communication guidelines specify teachers' commitment to communicating well, collective ownership of problems and problem solving, tolerance of differing ideas, individual accountability, dedication to helping and…

Teachers implementing a local history project in Belmont, California, had help from a federally funded technology innovation challenge grant: the Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project. Sponsored by a Silicon Valley school-business partnership, the initiative illustrates how technology can transform classroom learning while supporting instructional…

Because of the complex interaction between economic class and learning, improving mathematics education for all while narrowing achievement gaps is no simple task. As a young teacher, the author conducted action research to determine how low-SES and high-SES 7th graders responded to a problem-centered mathematics curriculum. To her dismay, she…

THE FOLLOWING IS THE FULL TEXT OF THIS DOCUMENT: Adults can help students become more responsible by teaching them new ways of thinking about self-control. The research summarized here suggests that: If students do not feel a sense of control over the outcomes of their actions, they will not exert much effort or assume much responsibility for what…

Considers the characteristics of large-scale spatial representations from three viewpoints and discusses a few implications of the existence of these representations for education. (Author/MLF)

Students often fail to apply knowledge and skills learned in one context to other situations. Although the implicit assumption in educational practice has been that transfer takes care of itself, a knowledge of the mechanisms of transfer can enable educators to help their students integrate general and local knowledge. (TE)